How can anyone try to have Labour ‘wiped out’ at an election and still claim to be acting in Labour’s interests?

This is from a scaremongering Torygraph article which may not be genuine – but the possibility it suggests is so atrocious it should be addressed.

The claim is that Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative MP who has called for a snap general election, has been approached by three Labour Parliamentarians who want him to succeed in his bid.

It seems they think Labour under Jeremy Corbyn must be “wiped out” in the polls in order to rid the party of a leader who has shown a troublesome tendency to be both socialist and popular.

None of these Labour MPs are named, so the entire story could be a figment of senior political correspondent Kate McCann’s imagination.

The plan could only work if an election was called quickly. The ‘Anyone But Corbyn’ plotters in the Parliamentary Labour Party have engineered a drop in Labour’s poll ratings, but this is certain to end after Mr Corbyn is restored as leader (with an expected increase in his majority) and gets back to the business of turning Labour into an alternative UK government.

The possibility that any Labour MP would stoop so low as to try to sabotage their own party – and doom the UK to another five long years under Conservative rule – to rid themselves of a leader who stands for Labour values is nothing short of an abomination.

Perhaps it would be best to try to kill it before it can be put into operation.

If you have a Labour MP, please contact them (preferably by Twitter so their answers are public) and ask if they would rather have Labour “wiped out” in an election than accept him as democratically-elected leader.

*The rest of the Torygraph article was about a scurrilous suggestion that around 6,000 Labour Party members have been reported to the NEC for online abuse of other members, anti-Semitism, and supporting other political parties.

It quotes a ‘senior source’ – Mr Nobody again – as saying, “The sad truth is the Labour Party is no longer a safe space for women and Jews.”

This is nothing but the same propaganda we’ve been seeing since the preparations started being laid for the so-called Labour ‘coup’, back in April.

Investigations into alleged anti-Semitism have shown there is no reason to believe Labour is any worse or better in that respect than the Conservative Party or, for that matter, the Telegraph.

If there really have been complaints against nearly 6,000 members, it would be interesting to see how many are supporters of Mr Corbyn, and how many are not. That figure might be newsworthy.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen revealed he had been approached by Labour MPs as part of an attempt to secure an early general election to “get rid of Jeremy Corbyn” as the party’s leadership contest continues.Mr Bridgen said he has been approached by three Labour MPs in Westminster who have asked for him to continue his bid for a nationwide vote in order to oust Mr Corbyn.

The MP claims that the Labour members warned the only way to rid the party of Mr Corbyn would be for Labour to be “wiped out” at a general election and prove his unpopularity with the public.

Post navigation

17 thoughts on “How can anyone try to have Labour ‘wiped out’ at an election and still claim to be acting in Labour’s interests?”

It should be noted that one or two left-wing MPs refused to support Jim Callaghan in a confidence vote in 1979. One of them admitted to me that they thought that losing the general election to the Tories would be no bad thing as it would reveal to the electorate just how incompetent and unpopular the Tories could be.
I think there was an element of misogyny in his remarks, as he clearly did not believe a woman – Thatcher – could possibly stay in place as Prime Minister.
I think he thought Labour would only be out of power for a short while before a left-wing led Labour Government was returned to power.
Well, he got that completely wrong didn’t he?
Most senior politicians will never give away power if they do not have to.
Right now, May has the prospect of remaining PM until 2020.
Why should she give that up?
The Labour game-players should reflect on that and learn to show loyalty.

Don’t for get that the Labour Right Wing stitch Foot up, the right wing put in a leadership challenge right when a general election was called, Foot unable to run a Labour Campaign because of that and 9 days before polling day the NEC declaired that they will be going with Foot, In those 8 days of Campaigning Foot manage to retain an even keel on the voters but not enough to win even with a coalition government, Remember that the country at the time was in a state of euforia and Thatcher had called an early Election because the Falklands War had just ended so Thatcher took advantage whil;e the country was on a high, if she had left it for a year or running till the end of office term, She would off lost.

Dear Comrade (how often do you hear that these days?),
I am not singling out one wing of the party for criticism.
Both wings are capable of stupidity on occasions.
Currently, it is the right-wingers who truly are stupid.

True enough John, problems in the 70’s and well into 80’s was created by the right wing, they wanted total control of the Labour party and was able to get it with Right Wing Kinnock. The stupidity of the left was not warning people about Bilderberg meetings.m error made back then these that attend those meetings are deciding policy for every one, Another Error made by the left was the Socialist Party should have taken credit for the anti-poll tax revolt, they lost out in membership.

Here we go again like a bag of rats these people have no interests in the Labour Party there only in it for the gravy train it as been is this what all the subscriptions goes to pay for a set of Blue Labour cretins

I think those who are so sure of the next general election result with Corbyn as leader need to read this. There are a lot of very marginal Tory seats, and depending on where the alleged 1/2 a million Labour members are a Tory win is not a foregone conclusion:- http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/2015guide/conservative-defence/

The people that they are reporting are people like myself, A Socialist Party member and candidate for the TUSC, Who are supporting Corbyn from the out side and showing support on social media web sites, there are also those that do not support or are members any political party or group, but supports Corbyn and are saying so. Gallway supports Corbyn policy’s and he as over a million followers.
As for early General Election I say lets have one now, because the mood of the Country at the moment will put Corbyn into number 10 with a land slide victory, These right wingers in the Labour party, knows there is a very good chance that they will be deselected before the next General Election, so to save there skins and not lose there jobs right away and have the chance off remaining for another 5 years in there Labour safe seats and that is to get an early General Election.

While I am here, should Corbyn be removed or gets wipe out, that would be the worse thing that can happen to the Labour party, apart from the new members have boosted the Labour funds with £50 million a year. If the right wing who are the minority in Labour but have the biggest say on what happens in the Labour Party get there way in removing Corbyn by any means, they will lose all these new members where many of them will join the Socialist Party as there policy is more or less the same as Corbyns and what the Labour party should be.
Should that happen then the TUSC will take over from Labour, remembering that the TUSC have all ready taken 6 Labour Safe Council seats away from Labour, the TUSC will start to pick up the Labour Voters on mass, more so in the Labour Safe seats.
The Labour right wing as never won a General Election or even a Local Election on there own backs, right wing Kinnock never won, Blair only won because of Left Wing J.Smith done all the hard work making the Labour party electable, but sadly only to died just before a General Election and Right Wing Blair was rushed in to take Smith place, Brown lost as did Milliband. Now we have Corbyn who made the Labour Party electable again and the right wing want to remove him so they can take advantage off all the hard work Corbyn as done to make them electable.

Naturally, I cannot comment on the 3 unnamed Labour MP’s, Mike. But I have come across this attitude on Labour forums on Facebook. There have been at least 4 commenters, claiming to be Labour members, who have wanted Theresa May to call an election so that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn can be wiped out.
One replied to me that it would be worth 5 years of Tory rule to get Corbyn out. I took him to be a Tory troll, but who knows? The rest seem to be Labour members. Appalling.

We only have six weeks before Corbyn is reselected as Labour’s leader and the best thing he can do is to introduce mandatory reselection. TM would not dare call for an election before Christmas when she still has another 3 years in power. Peter Wyatt above made the case and a whole lot more(I also liked Smith and had he lived I would have voted Labour that year instead of Tory). Quite a few of the Tories I meet also like what Corbyn is offering but are reluctant because of the strife caused by the Labour Right, but if they were gone, all but one of them would vote for JC. That’s how much store they put in what JC is offering, but wouldn’t vote for the old “New Labour”.
If JC fails his supporters and we have to go through another assault by the right wingers with yet another leadership challenge things can only deteriorate – badly.
The only reason why so many but not enough people voted Labour in 2015 was because they were the only viable option, not so this next time round. The vote for Labour will be fractured without JC. Pity the self serving right wingers can’t see that one coming.

“If there really have been complaints against nearly 6,000 members, it would be interesting to see how many are supporters of Mr Corbyn, and how many are not. That figure might be newsworthy.”

I fear any newsworthiness would be rendered moot by our fourth estate’s tendency to selectively censor and strict such statistics of all contexts.

I doubt for example any so called professional journalist (especially on this climate) would bother to reflect on the unavoidable and crucially unintended and UNELICITED attractiveness of Jeremy Corbyn (as a noted critic of Israeli policy vis a via Palestine) to the odd antisemite. It is a sad fact that such odious individuals do litter the anti-Zionist* movement as it offers them a measure of plausible deniability and we who are genuine critics of Zionism* as an ideology and of Israeli policy (but none the less friends of Palestinians and Israeli’s alike) often find ourselves cynically tarred with the same brush. Owen Smith, being a man without ANY ideological anchor or identifiable conviction beyond being the best damned stalking horse that couldn’t he can be (and certainly no strong convictions or record of public critique of Israeli actions against Palestinian civilians) will invariably not suffer from this effect. You can be damned sure that Corbyn will be tarred and feathered for ANY anti-semite pressence within Labour or preference for him thereof, no matter how slight or out of sync with his core message and values (the only things really under Corbyn’s personal control; membership vetting and duscipline being an administrative function of thr the party exercused at CLP and NEX level as far as I understand?) such members may be. Corbyn us, in fact, as far from anti-semite as one can get without falling into the myre of fawning pro-Zionist* stooges not permitted to utter even the slightest word of crutique of Israeli policy or action (much less the underlying logic, unjusticies and contradictions of Zionism or the two-state solution) as many Labour ‘Friends of Israel’ seem (to the casual observer) to be.

You are correct of course, in that it WOULD be interesting and perhaps even useful to have authorititave data on how many (if any) bone fide anti-semites have joined Labour. It would be even more interesting to know when they joined, why they joined, when they became antisemites (and how) or how many former antisemites came good within abd/or as a result of joining Labour. Ditto for all of the other political parties, groupings, enthnic associstions and civil society organs to dominate, curate snd/or contribute to political debate and culture l within the UK. Only then might we be be in a possition to identify where precisely the need to tackle the scourge of anti-semitism (and the wider issue of racism in general) is most pressing. Anti-semetic attacks are reported to be on the rise throughout Europe, not just the UK abd certainly not just (or at all) within Labour. As edifing as it might be for myopic self-interests within the Labour party to manipulate reality and score political points (marred by deep moral failure as they are) against Corbyn, Momentum and their supporters, it does nothing (less than nothing, in fact) for the cause of pritrcting our Jewish comrades and the the UKs wider Jewish community.

In this climate of sensationalism and ranc infotainment dressed up as public interest journalism however. with once seemingly honourable Labour politicians, grandees and their respective allies of the hour in the right leaning press willing to make hay with such data, cherry picking and manipulating data to draw a straight line to the likes of Corbyn and Momentum through the most cynical and dishonest intellectual acrobatics known to mankind, I think such information would do more harm than good (and not just to Corbyn and Labour), giving a free pass to Anti-semites without Labour and casting only a cursory glance (if any at all) over the important issue of anti-semitism within wider society. Reporting of such data, so inebitable is the low quality of its reportage, would thus fall well below the line of newsworthiness in my humble if cynical opinion. Heck if any such report identified a mere 12 anti-semites in Labour, all having joined before 2015, most former acolites of Blair, you’d likely not hear a word about it but for the odd cynical and politically motivated cry of ‘whitewash’ in a Corbyn bashing scrible.

* I use the terms Zionist and Anti-Zionist advisedly, knowing full well that they are often used as a cloak for racists and anti-semites. Both are also proudly used as self-descriptors by many within Israel, Israeli politics and/or Jewish comunnities and individuals the world over. So I hope that those ignorant of the words meaning do not simply see it as a weasle word for anti-semites, as for many of us who know its meaning and the contexts within which it has been used and abused in both the past and present, and whom frequently find common cause with Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, Israeli and diaspora Jews, Post Zionists, Labour Zionists and peace activists (and yes, even shades of sympathy for some Palestinian militants, whilst not condolning many of their more radical views or tactics) it is categorically NOT intended as such a weasel word and the constant defamatory assertians that it is, and that we are [anti-semites] from comrades, enemies and rancerous trolls alike is unhelpful, nerve racking and beneath contempt. The very fact that I felt the need to write this extended footnote for merely using the word Zionist* in it’s proprer context should reflect this. Too many of are left bereft and racked with conflict whenever they feel the legitimate need to critically address the actions of the Israeli state or the folly of Zionism (and revisionist Zionism in particular). In that respect, the slur, so often deployed to shut down legitimate and well intentioned criticism, works like a charm. Sorry to go off topic.

I really don’t think Labour needs any extra help as far as being “wiped out” goes. Just keep Jeremy Corbyn as leader and people like Dianne Abbot in senior roles in the shadow cabinet, stand back, and let nature take its course.

If it happens I will donate £100 to any charity you care to name but expect you to act reciprocally if the opposite comes true, i.e., if Labour loses the 2020 election you undertake to give £100 to a charity of my choice. Put a ton on the line where your mouth is, Mike. (Mixed metaphor?) What’ya’say?